DESTINY. AVENGED | Blume Day 2025

Year 14 | Tee shirt #11 

The essence of a Blume Day? It’s a celebration of founders’ journeys, young and old, short trysts with myriad little ups and downs, and one single long tryst with destiny, ushering life-changing outcomes for everyone on it. 

Even in the so-called startup failures, humanity has progressed in a small way. Dozens to hundreds of team members, thousands to millions of customers, faith keepers in investors, and other stakeholders have all lived the journey, only to emerge resilient or rejuvenated for another ultramarathon ahead. 

If they’re deemed a success, they have even further elevated all of these people’s lives. The differences are not as acute as they seem. There’s a fine line between what worked and what didn’t. Some say it’s Fate, some say it’s Luck, all other things being equal. 

We think it’s the superwomen or supermen at the helm harnessing the collective energy of all the people they touch to fulfill their Destiny. After 14 years at Blume (or what are two 7‑year economic cycles in common parlance), the learning is always cemented in this — that Markets are supreme. One has to harness them and be one with them, but legendary companies are almost always built on a founder’s Destiny. She has to see herself in the mirror every morning, wear her game face; no excuses. He has to wait for the last light to be switched off and come back the next morning energized like it was Day Zero. There are relentless body blows, mental anguish, and yet a deep well of inner faith that rebuilds from the aftermath of those wrecking balls. 

Springsteen concert, Summer of 2023, Favourite live number ​“Wrecking Ball” 

“…

Bring on your wrecking ball

Bring on your wrecking ball

C’mon and take your best shot

Let me see what you got

Bring on your wrecking ball

…

Now, when all this steel and these stories

Drift away to rust

And all our youth and beauty

Has been given to the dust

When the game has been decided

And we’re burnin’ down the clock

And all our little victories and glories

Have turned into parking lots

When your best hopes and desires

Are scattered to the wind

And hard times come and hard times go and

Hard times come and hard times go and

Hard times come and hard times go and

Hard times come and hard times go and

Hard times come and hard times go

Yeah, just to come again”

The lyrics signified everything about the length of arduous entrepreneurial roads, depth of the ravines, just distant peaks visible from there, the naysayers, the brickbats, the supporters who lose faith along the way.

Every memorable cinematic story of conquest has the same theme — the Fellowship of the Ring, The Return of the Jedi, or the Avengers, Endgame! Every great startup story Avenges its Destiny in the same way — teamwork and a greater calling overcoming all intermediate setbacks. 

In the toughest of times, one question we always ask our founders at that moment is, ​“Will there be a Book?” When they stare back, vanquishing their demons of doubt, fear, leaning on the extra reserve of courage, we know that they are silently mouthing, ​“Destiny. I will Avenge You”. And we instinctively know that there will be a book someday. 

It’s not an emotion about just Blume’s portfolio or our own journey. This is a shared sentiment with every peer and every startup in India. I was on WhatsApp with a classmate. discussing a podcast that spoke of the courage that the Google and Meta founders had, in equal amounts when their companies were small or large and he wondered loudly why we don’t have that in India. We are just kicking off Decade #3 of this brave institutional capital-backed Startup ecosystem journey. The valley is entering its 6^th decade. China didn’t have the time advantage that the US did but had a state machinery that drove growth and per capita GDP like machines on steroids. 

India needs to line up the warriors and the leaders in large numbers. We have to then have an equally bold and courageous ecosystem — sure of itself. Success begets success, as the old cliché goes, but we are standing at the precipice, ready for the inevitable leap. It’s Indian tech and innovation that has to stand up now and announce itself defiantly: ​“Destiny. Avenged”